SHEEP SHEARING MACHINES. In countries where individual flocks of sheep are large or where wages are high, mechanical aids to hand clipping are employed in order to lower the cost or to speed up the work. In the pastoral districts of Australia, New Zealand and South America mechanical shearing is almost universal. In Great Britain, although hand clipping is still widely practised, the use of shearing machines is gradually extending. Hand-shearing leaves the clipped surface in ridges whose evenness and symmetry are an indication of the skill of the operator while the machine leaves the surface level. It is claimed that the machine clips a heavier fleece than hand shears; but the result depends largely on the comparative skill of the operators.
The essential components of a shearing machine are a comb which is guided by hand over the body of the animal, a cutter with sharp edges which shears the wool by passing backwards and forwards across corresponding edges on the comb, a recipro cating device for actuating the cutter, a flexible or universally jointed coupling for driving the cutter, and the hand wheel or power unit. The moving parts of the actuating mechanism are protected so as to prevent them becoming entangled in the wool.
Hand machines are usually mounted on a metal stand and can be easily carried by one man. They are driven by a chain or belt from a wheel to which the handle is attached, and require two persons to operate them, one to turn the handle and the other to clip the sheep. These machines are suitable only for small flocks. When large numbers of sheep have to be clipped, the machines are invariably power driven. A long shed may be spe cially adapted for shearing : shafting is then mounted along one side to which several shearing machines are connected : an in ternal combustion engine or other motive power is used to drive the shafting. Portable shearing outfits are also common and en able the machine to be taken to the flock. The power unit (usually an internal combustion engine) is mounted on a. suitable transport truck and the shearing units are either connected to a portable shafting or to separate points on the truck itself. Elec tric drive has been found to be the most satisfactory for shearing machines and it is not unusual to employ an internal combustion engine to drive a dynamo which in turn is used to operate sepa rate motors for driving the shearing units.